November 20, 2008

On the UK's PocketLint gadget web they have recently posted a video on research from Maryland and Berkeley Universities into more advanced document navigation.

As part of that research they developed further the concept of a dual-display eReader and how it can be used to ease certain types of reading, and some of the more complex navigational tasks.

This would be most useful beyond your standard "linear reading" of a book, in such tasks as document reading, cross-referencing and production by a knowledge worker, student, professor or other.

I have long advocated the two screen approach. In the future I hope technology will evolve so that in fact it can be one large flexible screen that can be used as one large screen in portrait or landscape, or as two smaller portrait pages side by side. This is my 200% goal for the "screen space to device size (closed) ratio".

The video is well done, and three and a half minutes long, so just go ahead and watch it.

November 19, 2008

eReader is another eBook reading application for the iPhone and iPod Touch devices.

You can see a 10minute demo video of their v1.0 release (from July 2008) here, or embedded below:

Getting the applicationThe application is downloaded to the iPhone from the Apple AppStore as for other applications.

Getting ContenteBooks can be purchased from major publishers (at the moment eReader themselves and Fictionwise), although they say they will be adding more sources shortly.

Books are kept on your eReader web account, even if you have deleted your local copy from your iPhone or you have not yet downloaded it to your device.

From the UI you can go to your eReader account (with a username and password login) and then select books from there to (re-)download into the device memory.

You can request multiple downloads in parallel, and it advises you when they are completed.

Premium content requires an unlock code on download, although they do "cache" them to save re-entry.

For purchases done via the device the credit card number configured on your eReader account is used.

At the time of the video (July) they state they have more than fifty thousand titles available, which is more than some eBook reader platforms.

UsageThe app has a "bookshelf" inside which is nothing more than the books on the device itself, as opposed to the books you own or available from the web.

Page turning is the intuitive, and rapidly becoming ubiquitous on the iPhone, "swipe to turn".I didn't see demo-ed a simple "tap to turn" option that exists in Stanza or "Classics", the previous iPhone readers I've covered, but I hope they have included it.

Good features included are:-

supports landscape format

dictionary integration. A downloaded dictionary (of which there can be multiple) works across different books. Just press and hold to see dictionary entry for a word.

font size control.

and they state they are planning improvements in the number of sources of content and user interface and collection browsing/filtering, some of which maybe already in the 1.3 release now available

SummaryeReader seems like another well done eReading application for the iPhone platform, with more than some others have in back-end systems and available content.

These eReading applications for iPhone are following Apple guidelines and UI styles and doing a nice job of user interaction and graphics.

As a result they are already trending to convergence, with not a lot of difference between them!

The difference will be in the availability of books from the internet, pricing and integration with other possible reading devices and services.